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flashy_mcflash
Feb 7, 2011

The Ninth Layer posted:

Idk I don't really want the show to kill June, and it seems like most of the read of the thread does.

I don't want June to die but I'm increasingly baffled that they seem to want me to continue rooting for her. It's like the few episodes at the end of s2 and the beginning of s3 where they wanted us to root for Serena.

flashy_mcflash fucked around with this message at 05:10 on Jul 11, 2019

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flashy_mcflash
Feb 7, 2011

The only good thing about the show now is expressing how ineffectually centrist and polite the Canadian government is. Given what they should already know about Gilead they're still attempting diplomatic relations.

I would like to see more of the world outside North America. It's outside the scope of what June would know as a narrator, but so is all the stuff about Emily and all the flashbacks. If America/Gilead is this monstrous, what's happening in Russia, China, India, and the Middle East?

flashy_mcflash
Feb 7, 2011

Lum_ posted:


If the tv series *doesn't* do a time jump to this, not sure how it can continue otherwise, since most of the narrative conceits of the past couple seasons are shut down (June never leaves Gilead, Hannah grows up with her foster parents, Nicole isn't returned to Gilead). Again, preeeetty sure this is intentional on Atwood's part - she's taking back her baby.

It may or may not connect with the existing show (it may end up on another network), but Testaments is already in development

flashy_mcflash
Feb 7, 2011

Haven't watched E03 yet but I assume the endgame is all out war on Gilead. The epilogue of the book will likely be the last episode or scene.

flashy_mcflash
Feb 7, 2011

Watching E3 and it's extremely cool and good that the torture facility is very obviously my university campus.

flashy_mcflash
Feb 7, 2011

McSpanky posted:

I read that the sequel book The Testaments was written with this show in mind and the producers are going to incorporate it into the series. That gets a big WTF from me because so far only the slightest bit of moral ambiguity we've gotten from Aunt Lydia is her occasionally protecting the handmaids from the harshest punishments, but it's always cloaked in the sanctimonious dogma of Gilead without a bare hint of her feeling otherwise. She hasn't once come off as less than a clear-eyed true believer, it's gonna take a helluva retcon to get anywhere close to Lydia being one of the main resistance moles who eventually becomes instrumental in bringing down Gilead.

I haven't read Testaments but every season of this show they tease a face turn for Lydia (even this season has the "it was your fault/you failed them" scenes in the prison where it looks like June is really getting to her) but it's never happened.

Either they follow through with it in the last season or it never happens imo. I really think they've taken Lydia too far now to redeem her though, and if they're going to tell the story of a rogue Aunt it'll have to be a new character.

flashy_mcflash
Feb 7, 2011

Come on wtf with this new episode

flashy_mcflash
Feb 7, 2011

Normy posted:

It's kind of surprising that the Chicago people don't know who June is. Her adventures do seem like they are international news.

It's not really clear if they have access to media but yeah agreed, if she's a legend among the Handmaids she should be there too.

flashy_mcflash
Feb 7, 2011

Shouldn't June be smarter at this point than to want to kill some random grunt on patrol when they were hiding in the store? Or was the through line of this episode not much more than "June is very thirsty to get a gun by whatever means necessary"?

flashy_mcflash
Feb 7, 2011

Retrowave Joe posted:

She’d also have to be smarter than to walk down the middle of the street in a war zone in broad daylight, too, but that didn’t happen.

I love how dumbass Janine was better at stealth than she was.

flashy_mcflash
Feb 7, 2011

mcmagic posted:

The whole deal with Nick is just dumb and nonsensical.

I truly don't understand how the show wants us to feel about Nick. Are we rooting for this guy? Should we trust that his motivations are good even when he's the dictionary definition of that guy we all knew who listened to RATM and said he was, like, gonna bring the system down from the inside, maannnn and then sold out in the most typical and obvious way possible?

Early on I was thinking his existence might be a symbol of fake (male) feminist allyship and the idea that women should be wary of men that only want to help them when they want to smash, but this has gone on way too long for that. Like, we see Luke in most episodes now, why are we supposed to have anything but contempt for Nick?

flashy_mcflash
Feb 7, 2011

You get to see some more Aunts in the episode after that I think, but it would be nice if they fleshed out that part of the world a bit.

flashy_mcflash
Feb 7, 2011

mcmagic posted:

The idea that every coast guard troop in Gilead doesn't know what she looks like is LOL. She's like the foremost enemy of the state.

Yeah I don't need detailed TED talks about the economics of Gilead or schematics of the wind-powered military installations but it's beyond unbelievable that a person so valuable to Gilead that she's caused multiple international and domestic terror incidents wouldn't be like the one face burned into the brains of every single person in charge of inspecting outgoing travel from the country. They had her rear end locked up for weeks torturing her and no one thought to take a photo just in case she escapes like she's done 400 times?

What's more jarring to me is that they chose to use flashbacks in this episode to play up Luke as a character who left his previous wife due to infertility. This causes June to be afraid enough to return to him without Hanna that she's willing to basically commit suicide by trying to go back for her (with no plan). Is this supposed to be equivocating him with a Gilead commander/patriarch? Is the show making a statement that all marriages are inherently patriarchal, and if not, then what were we supposed to read from those flashbacks being juxtaposed with this specific part of the story?

flashy_mcflash
Feb 7, 2011

timp posted:

My immediate first thought was that the choice of milk must have had some sort of thematic implication.

I thought (mother's) milk was a pretty heavy handed element even for this show. It wasn't explored in any meaningful way but I figured the writers really thought they were doing something clever there.

timp posted:

Like I said earlier, the why doesn't seem to matter this year when compared to the what, so whatever.

This is disappointing but extremely true.

flashy_mcflash
Feb 7, 2011

fart simpson posted:

what happened with the colonies? also remember in season 1 where handmaids got executed for talking to each other in the store? but now somehow they keep telling inventing reasons for not putting june on the wall?

They've (badly) explained that away by saying that fertile women are so scarce that they can't kill any of them. Despite having a scene where a commander threw 3-4 of them off the roof just prior.

flashy_mcflash
Feb 7, 2011

I really did think that one of the (many) scary things about the book version of Gilead was that they were so racist that even in a fertility crisis they still weren't willing to consider bearing children with/from minorities. That is an, um, impressive commitment to racism.

The show is definitely better for having Black/POC characters but it necessarily means they have to soften that image of Gilead, which is also a little problematic. It's a tough needle to thread and I think the show could do more to emphasize or explore Gilead's begrudging acceptance of minorities for the sake of breeding but I can also understand why they don't do so.

flashy_mcflash
Feb 7, 2011

fart simpson posted:

i dont know about this. i don't think gilead being too soft and likeable is very high up on the list of problems with the show

I guess it's more of downplaying the racism in favour of other (often more cartoonish and easier or more comfortable for the audience to condemn) aspects of fascism. Again, I get why they wouldn't really emphasize the marginalization of other groups than women but it's also kind of interesting that a decades-old book captures at least part of the idea of intersectionality better than a modern project.

flashy_mcflash
Feb 7, 2011

Escobarbarian posted:

Luke is a dude who escaped to Canada when Gilead took over and doesn’t live there. Why would him being black bother you?

I think it's implied in the book that minorities (esp Black people and Jews) were under the same travel restrictions as women and would not have been able to escape to Canada or elsewhere. As such it wouldn't be likely that Book Luke was Black.

Again though, I think the show is better for the addition of Luke and Moira and other characters that are Black/PoC though.

flashy_mcflash
Feb 7, 2011

I understand why they did it in the context of what came just before (June reclaiming power over Serena) but they cannot possibly be expecting us to support June after this episode.

flashy_mcflash
Feb 7, 2011

The aid group seems pretty loving stupid anyway to not realize that she'd be an important political asset and they shouldn't get shut down for rescuing her, especially since the alternatives were giving her up to assuredly be murdered or throwing her off the side of the boat.

flashy_mcflash
Feb 7, 2011

Dolphin posted:

Am I the only one who interpreted that Luke was apprehensive because he was unsure of her readiness to engage in sex? They already alluded to that earlier with the kissing scene.

I feel like everyone screaming "sexual assault" have never actually been in an abusive relationship because that's not how it works. The reason men are so rarely victims of sexual assault by women is because most men can easily defend themselves against it barring drugs, alcohol, or emotional abuse.

Like if I was Luke and wasn't into it I would have been like nah, you're off me now, chill out. June is obviously extremely hosed up but I don't see this putting her in sexual abuser territory unless there's some June hyperstrength super power plot they haven't revealed yet.

The showrunner acknowledges that it crosses a line into something forced in the quote posted earlier so, no, this show does not warrant a charitable reading.

It's easy to say how you would've reacted to a woman assaulting you but he could've been biologically willing but still not wanting sex in that moment, which is still rape on June's part.

flashy_mcflash
Feb 7, 2011

Best episode since maybe season one, imo. It managed to convey the individual human effects of facism as well as the bigger societal threat of how it can spread and take hold. It also, in a week where we irl found the graves of 215 dead indigenous children due to Canada's rotten history, threw cold water on the idea of Canada as some kind of paradise that's insulated from that threat, which is how it's been presented in the show up to this point.

Even on a production level it was perfect, though I'm biased since Portishead is my hands down favourite band. I've been down on this season for the most part up until now but this episode kicked my rear end.

flashy_mcflash fucked around with this message at 00:07 on Jun 3, 2021

flashy_mcflash
Feb 7, 2011

I feel like it's directed squarely against Gilead but you can't just put that in a box, it'll seep into other parts of your life too.

Unrelated: Bradley Whitford telling Lydia to her face that no one likes her and everyone likes June is the funniest thing I've seen on tv this week

flashy_mcflash
Feb 7, 2011

mcmagic posted:

lol @ the Waterfords having fans.

Being in the stupidest timeline irl with QAnon, etc this is maybe the most believable thing about this season. Of course a certain subset of people will rally behind Strong Rapist Daddy just trying to bring about god's plan.

flashy_mcflash
Feb 7, 2011

mcmagic posted:

Yeah it is believable. I was just laughing about it while watching.

I think they were going for terrifying but when they started cutting to the people in the crowd I was howling too. I don't even know why.

flashy_mcflash
Feb 7, 2011

Also uh Sally Draper/Kiernan Shipka has in fact aged since that show ended in 2015.

flashy_mcflash
Feb 7, 2011

mcmagic posted:

It's actually not super believable if you think about it... Canada is at war with Gilead. It's hard to see a Gilead pep rally being treated too kindly. It's not the same thing as people in the US today being Q freaks because we're not literally at war with another Q country lol

There's always a subset of people that support the other side for whatever reason. We have Trump supporters here in Canada and neo-Nazis. One country being at war with another doesn't just turn the entire country into a monolith against the country you're at war with. It's also very much a Cold War with a shared border.

I think there probably would've been counter-protestors for sure, and they'd certainly outnumber the Serena Stans but showing that prominently would undercut what they were trying to portray.

There were also practical considerations around making that crowd too big.


quote:

The fact that there’s “anyone supporting them in Canada was chilling,” Moss notes, but she was also mindful of not making the crowd too large — and not only because they were filming amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It was only recently that the news about the pregnancy would have come out, and so their fandom couldn’t be outrageous. They’re not Justin Bieber all of a sudden,” she says.

flashy_mcflash fucked around with this message at 17:38 on Jun 4, 2021

flashy_mcflash
Feb 7, 2011

They explicitly said that. I'm now curious if June's team is gonna go aunt-hunting

flashy_mcflash
Feb 7, 2011

Drunk in Space posted:

I must have missed something: when did they say Canada is actually at war with Gilead? I thought it was still a standoff type situation.

I think that's the case, or at least it's a cold war with sanctions, etc. It seems pretty clear that they're not engaged in open war.

flashy_mcflash
Feb 7, 2011

If it's actually analogous to current day Canada, some of those protestors would be cops and Mounties and if this last year of anti-mask protests is any indication, would enjoy some level of protection from police.

flashy_mcflash
Feb 7, 2011

Sri.Theo posted:

I thought the ‘this is not a trial’ trial was pretty weak. Why is the judge letting a hostile cross examination take place if that’s the case?

Yeah that was cool for effect I guess but it made no sense that the judge would allow both a) that cross examination and b) June to just leave in the middle of it.

flashy_mcflash
Feb 7, 2011

I always assumed he was part of the Canadian government, but that makes sense too.

flashy_mcflash
Feb 7, 2011

SirPablo posted:

June was in Gilead for what, five years? And she was on that stand for maybe ten minutes.

She basically recapped the whole show. Like wtf just fire up Hulu and show them.

flashy_mcflash
Feb 7, 2011

Lum_ posted:

One would assume a Commander being on trial with the ICC would be a big deal that would prompt visiting dignitaries to be allowed to visit the prisoners.

(One would also assume a Commander being on trial with the ICC wouldn't loving be let off the hook for promises of spilling info that may or may not be relevant but that would require better writing)

In retrospect, the series really should have ended with Waterford's capture. It's been downhill ever since.

I'd be fine with last week's being the series finale. You needed June confronting Fred in court and laying bare what was done to her. Even the extremely dark ending of that episode would hurtle this series back into horror territory and leave it there.

I was actually hoping they'd dangle letting Fred off in exchange for information but yank it back at the last second. I guess that can still happen but it seems unlikely.

flashy_mcflash
Feb 7, 2011

BattyKiara posted:

So Nick remarried, did he? Another child bride?

Sounds like it. Are there any available women that June has not gotten killed that would be shocking for him to have married?

flashy_mcflash
Feb 7, 2011

mcmagic posted:

It's pretty funny how Lawrence and Nick just do whatever she wants them to. I kinda like that part.

They can and will orchestrate this needlessly elaborate death for Waterford but can't hook her up with Hannah? What are we even doing here y'all

flashy_mcflash
Feb 7, 2011

mcmagic posted:

L A W L

Where the gently caress is she going? lol. Are canadians big enough cucks to put her in jail for killing Waterford?

They facilitated it! How can they turn around and punish her for that now? Oh right, because it's THT, the dumbest show on TV.

What was the point of showing the Canadian support for the Waterfords again?

flashy_mcflash
Feb 7, 2011

Exodor posted:

What the hell was the point of the Janine/Aunt Lydia/crazy teen subplot? Was it even referenced in the finale?

lol nope. And June didn't even think to ask for her good buddy to be one of the 22 released women I guess?

flashy_mcflash
Feb 7, 2011

Should've been Serena instead

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flashy_mcflash
Feb 7, 2011

We're back, folks.


quote:

June faces consequences for killing Commander Waterford while struggling to redefine her identity and purpose. The widowed Serena attempts to raise her profile in Toronto as Gilead's influence creeps into Canada. Commander Lawrence works with Aunt Lydia as he tries to reform Gilead and rise in power. June, Luke and Moira fight Gilead from a distance as they continue their mission to save and reunite with Hannah."

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